James Annan posted a link to The President of AGU’s discussion of Gleick’s resignation.
James closes his own post with
“…especially those who are desperately clinging on to the faint hope that his “confession” was actually honest. Which seems pretty implausible from where I’m sitting. Don’t forget the first rule of holes!”
Discussion in comments over there is interesting. I encourage people to read the one posted at 29/2/12 10:22 AM .
Boy, I hope Roy posts the anomaly soon… then we can get back to the weather. Mosher suggested I start an ice bet. Uhmmm… open thread.
Some total pwnage by Carrick in the comments…
moschop is one of my sock puppets. [*]
Come to think of it, I’ve never been photographed standing beside myself.
Hm….
[*] <(") Joke.
I am fascinated and appalled by the Gleick defenders in the comments on the Annan piece and elsewhere. There appears to be a widely held notion that the only moral standard is one’s ideological allegiance. Whatever was done to advance the right cause cannot be morally or ethically wrong.
Also the constant vague references about the contents of the (non-fake) HI documents being damning is baffling: rather miniscule amounts of money provided by (some of) those you would expect to provide it to oppose a policy position they regard as harmful and wrong … so what? But again, acting against The Cause is itself immoral, I guess.
And grasping at unbelievably stupid theories about Bast/Mosher or about Gleick’s supposed victim status … I guess the self-righteous glow of being a Warmista fends off embarrassment that would come naturally to the unafflicted when espousing self-evident silliness.
Kinda sad, as bugs would say.
>>”moschop is one of my sock puppets.”
Nah, more like a paid shill. If anyone else would like to pwn like Carrick, I’ll send along my PayPal address. 😀
Carrick –
I have! Piccadilly Circus circa 1996. I haven’t got the photo anymore but you can get an idea from this…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anteros.
I like to think of myself as a self-referential sock puppet 🙂
Annan’s post there is incredibly well written. The bloody knife analogy is very good.
I enjoyed the ‘Heartland. Stalin. No difference’ line of argument.
AFPhys–
Yes. And if we wished to guild the lily, the person holding the bloody knife was standing over the dead body of a known enemy.
Back when Roger asked Gleick whether he wrote the thing and Joshua got on his high horse, I said something to the effect that I’d believe a straight “no, I didn’t” if that’s what Gleick responded. But that’s not what Gleick responded. We got a long scant-on-details story that looks like something of a denial to having written the fake.
I know there are possible scenarios where Gleick might not be the person who wrote the memo. If this gets to court maybe we’ll learn more when Gleick or some investigator reveals whatever details he’s currently concealing. Right now, with Gleick silent, the more interesting thing is FOGs writing their theories about how Gleick is really a hero of some sort.
WUWT is now posting that Kevin Trenberth is excusing Gleick’s actions as “advocacy”. Situational ethics is alive and well in climate science. Following that line of thought, then faking data is ok too as long as it’s in support of the cause. How does it go? False in one, false in all? 🙂
I didn’t care about Gleick that much but now I’m sickened and disgusted.
Lucia (Comment #92423),
I mostly agree. But I think just about any sane person will see that:
1) Gleick is almost certainly the author of the fake document.
2) Gleick is clearly in violation of applicable law, and clearly subject to both fine and prison time.
3) The deranged loonies on the left like Gleick should be completely ignored in the public debate about what (if anything) to do about rising GHG’s.
4) The deranged loonies on the right (anybody who disputes radiative physics, for example) should be similarly ignored.
Trenbarth must share the same set of morals as Gleick if he is serious when he insists that Gleick’s career as a scientist is not over.
If Gleick was innocent of forging the strategy document, the obvious thing he would want to do is clear up the rumors that he is the forger.
The best way for him to do that would be for him to reveal everything he knows about the document: when he got it, where is the hard copy, what kind of envelope it came in, where is the envelope now, what is the post mark on the envelope, when and where he scanned it, and so on.
If he is innocent of the forgery, then he would have nothing to fear by total disclosure. He would not need to fear being tripped up by an inconsistency, if he told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
It should be clear, even to his strongest supporters, that he hasn’t yet told the whole truth.
Oy.
All I can say after reading the comments over there is the term “denier” would seem to have switched camps.
The deranged like Trenberth can excuse Glieck. But that does not matter in the real world.
Gleick has lost all credibility as an advocate for his cause. Which seems about right. Live the sword, die by the sword. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving person.
Gleik’s denial of having written the false strategy memo allows the true believers to continue to harbor the hope that it is in some respect genuine, much as the true-believers in the case of the forged Texas Air National Guard memo were never able to accept its falsity (“fake but accurate”).
‘alcuin (Comment #92433)
March 1st, 2012 at 4:41 pm
Gleik’s denial of having written the false strategy memo………’
means that he is not only a liar, but a cowardly liar.
The truth will out, but in the case of Gleik, the truth will not make him free.
Sorry to be slow, but has Gleick committed a crime under US law or not? I hear things about the FBI being called in by HI; the PacInst having an independent reviewer (?) to look into things; and Gleick being not only lawyered up, but high-powered damage-limitation PR hacked up as well.
It’s just that I was looking forward to seeing him in cuffs. How long does it take to charge him with,er,something?
[evil grinning smiley face which I can’t attach for some reason]
Lucia,
Gleick is the “talk of the town” and rightly so, but I too would like to get back to the weather.
I like the idea of an ice bet… the more I can bet on, the better my chances of winning something.
I’ve been watching the temperatures but I haven’t really given ice much of a thought. So little thought, in fact, that I don’t even know where to get any ice data. Would you be so kind as to post a link to whatever site you were considering betting on.
The fact that we can’t account for the missing ethics is a travesty.
OT, but speaking of weather, have you folks noticed the swings in the AMSU data. The range in the February data look larger than any in past years’. If there is no sensor problems, then there is surely something going on causing these large swings.
CoRev– With field data reported real time, always assume weird stuff is instrumentation until people have had a halfway decent amount of time to look at it.
CoRev –
It may well just be a visual thing. If you plot up the 2012 data just with 2004 they look decidedly similar..
Cui Bono (Comment #92435)
March 1st, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Sorry to be slow, but has Gleick committed a crime under US law or not?
18 U.S.C. 1343 – Wire fraud appears to have occurred.
Not every ‘law’ that gets broken gets prosecuted…even if there is a signed confession.. The appropriate US Attorney has great discretion as to what will be prosecuted. (Our prisons are already full, the courts are backed up for years).
What we need is a list of those “climate scientists” who claim what he did was ok in the name of advocacy next to a list who have come out and denounced what he did. Has anyone seen or started one?
harrywr2 (Comment #92444)
Well, since he basically admitted to wire fraud, yeah, he committed a crime.
Given the Obama administration’s track record of ignoring or breaking laws (New Black Pather voter intimidation, Fast and Furious, illegal immigration) and their attempts at intimidation of homeowners, their attempts to stop states from enforcing the immigration laws they are ignoring, harassment of whisleblowers, and the lack of prosecution of Wall Street insiders, the odds on Gleick receiving more than a tap on the wrist are mighty small.
Possibilities for an ice bet: The maximum NH extent (MAISIE?) or Cryosphere Today area or the date of some selected maximum. I think we’ve already seen the SH minimum.
Maybe Gleick will go back to doing science and leave the advocacy to the cultists (thank you Lucy Skywalker for suggesting that his defenders’ rants resemble emanations from a cult).
harrywr2 (Comment #92444)
While prosecutors have great discretion, where there is a clear victim who has been harmed, there is also pressure to at least go for an indictment, if the victim is pressing charges.
Having read some of Gleick’s writing, especially his interactions with Tamsin and Barry, I am not the least surprised at his actions. I’m not even surprised as DeSmog. But I am astounded at some of the “scientists” that seem to be defending his lack of integrity. At least some real scientist have called this what it is: Annan, Richard Betts, even Gavin Schmidt sees it for what it is.
Yesterday was reported to tie the record high temperature for Fort Wayne, IN (66 F). Then it struck me that, with yesterday being Feb. 29, there were only 1/4 as many competing dates. Not such a big deal, with temperatures back below freezing as I write.
On topic, I was pleased with Annan’s narrative, but very disappointed by the moral vacuity of most of the responders on that blog.
Cross-posted from Annan’s blog. It’s not obvious that wire fraud laws are applicable.
here is my question.
If its ok to lie for the cause, why not throw gleick under the bus for the cause. ? he’s just one man.
The obvious response is that the cause isn’t the only thing at stake.
Ice bets.
1. Your best guess at minimum extent.
2. the first day of every month you get to adjust.
3. last guess is sept 1.
Then we need to figure a scoring system.
Your final score is
abs(Actual – Last Guess) + abs(all changes)
March 1 guess 4m
April 4.1 (.1)
May 4.2 (.1)
une 4.1 (.1)
July 4.1
Aug 4.0 (.1)
Sep 4.0
Actual 3.9
score = abs(3.9-4) + .4
Sumptin like dat
Lucia [ #92423 ], an interesting aspect here also is that in the same thread, When Joshua was asked if he is Josh Rosenau of NSCE, he did not reply and disappeared from the climate blogosphere altogether. This lack of reply to a direct question makes one believe that he is most likely Josh Rosenau. And considering the fact that Josh Rosenau was also caught making incorrect statements that Gleick was not officially part of NCSE eventhough he joined as a Director in January, one can presume that Josh was not risking anymore revelations and has run away with his tail tucked between his legs.
Eli links to a reasonably dispassionate consideration
in Columbia Journalism Review of the legality and journalistic precedents of Gleick’s actions.
Nick Stokes.
I read the article. While mildly interesting, I don’t feel any of their comparison situations are quite on point.
There is something very different about pretending to be an actual person, i.e. impersonation. Saying you are an employee or even making up an alias, is different from saying you are a specific living person.
Likewise there is something very different about concealing some detail, or even saying something not quite true, to actually creating and using multiple fraudulent instruments (which is, I believe, what I think they would call them in England, not sure in the US) – the fraudulent instruments being the phishing emails written by Gleick.
And this is all quite apart from the fraudulent strategy document, or the separate deceptions used in the email to the “15”, or the yet further deceptions used in the “confession”.
Steven Mosher (#92460) wrote “why not throw gleick under the bus for the cause. ?”
Perhaps because it might, to twist Voltaire’s words, discourage the others. Can’t have that (in some people’s minds).
Nick–
That article that ends with
IOTW: No news organization would act this way because it could be illegal, the info obtained was not worth it and there are other ways to achieve the goal of getting that information.
Carrick–
BTW: Even if the Fed. wirefraud statute doesnt apply, the Illinois statue might. (But Cook Co. probably won’t go after him anyway.)
The article sort of skates around the real issue. I agree with Copner in saying “I don’t feel any of their comparison situations are quite on point.”
This may be relevant as to why:
“The legal experts consulted for this article emphasized that they did not want to speculate about whether or not Gleick had broken any law.”
Meh. The article addresses the issues adequately – at least those that they can address explicitly.
.
The real issue has always been the fake memo. Gleick’s explanation just sounds uncomfortably contrived. But the Columbia Review guys can’t just go out and say, “we think he did it!”
.
James Annan can, which allows him to capture the general opinion:
.
.
Not much to add.
Climate Audit has a post on the whole wire fraud issue and, based on that, it certainly seems that the law does apply. Even provides applicable case law. The key is the definition of “property”.
18 U.S.C. 1343
Cardinal O’Brien: repent over indifference to climate change
CatholicCulture.org, March 1, 2012
Legal experts are the least likely to speculate in public about these– unless they are the paid legal experts on a news program. In that case, you get three together and they speculate away throughout an investigation of a train wreck type case (e.g. Casey Anthony, OJ etc.)
But in this case, the legal experts know that informed speculation requires pretty good knowledge of the facts and they are aware that a journalist isn’t likely to know which facts matter most. Moreover, the journalist asking questions is not likely to have all the facts and — depending on the journalist– may not have incentive to provide all the relative facts. For the legal expert would be a lot of work to go through all possible case law and sift through all the facts to figure out whether Gleick might be guilty of or libel for wirefraud (federal? Illinois? California?), defamation, false light invasion of privacy etc.
Assuming a legal expert isn’t going to want to do 40 hours of work just to help a journalist write an article, his expert advice on the specific case is going to be “He might be guilty. Or not. I answered a few of your hypotheticals. Now sorry, but your 10 minutes are up!”.
Steven Mosher (Comment #92460)
March 1st, 2012 at 11:55 pm
If its ok to lie for the cause, why not throw gleick under the bus for the cause. ? he’s just one man.
My daughter is taking a ‘legal philosophy course’. There are two basic philosophies as to ‘duty to another’.
One philosophy is that our ‘natural duty’ to another is only limited by statute or contract. The other is that any duty to another person is only created by statute or contract.
The class example is – You are sitting at the hotel pool, enjoying a nice cold drink and some person in the pool appears to be drowning.
If we have a ‘natural’ duty to each other then you are obligated to help. If we don’t then as a hotel guest you have no duty to help. A hotel employee might have a contractual duty to help a drowning guest.
The ’cause’ generally believes in ‘natural duty’. Hence, throwing Gleick under the bus would be a violation of their core beliefs.
This is also how ‘the cause’ comes to the conclusion that people and entities that don’t believe in ‘natural duty’ are ‘evil’.
Heartland Institute is a libertarian think tank. Almost by definition Libertarians don’t believe that they have a ‘natural duty’ to others. Hence they are ‘evil’.
Under the philosophical belief system of the ’cause’ Dr Gleick was performing his ‘natural duty’ to protect his fellow man from ‘evil’.
Feb UAH in….
Carrick–
Thanks for the link. As long as we are going to be armchair attorney’s, I’m reformatting and highlighting the circuit courts.
The bit you quoted require the element of “money”. That’s quoting the 8th circuit. It’s not clear to me the other circuits have ruled that the crime requires “money”. For Gleick/Heartland, the relevant circuits are 7th (chicago) and 9th (California).
http://www.uscourts.gov/court_locator.aspx
Anyway, according to this handbook, at least one court includes “money” in the elements. The others lists omit the element of money. The law may be unclear on that point about money. We don’t have quotes listing elements from the 7th or 9th circuit. If this handbook is the ‘bible’ on this issue, I’d guess a prosecutor in the 7th or 9th could easily decide that pursuing a case not involving money is tenuous and quite likely would decide not to pursue. OTOH, if someone had numerous charges and Gleick was important for some reason, a prosecutor might add this to the list of charges.
But really…. as much as we are discussing it, relative to– say Blagojevich– Gleick’s case is small potatoes. Given the 8th circuit having included “money”, I can’t imagine a prosecutor in the 9th or 7th is going to pursue this. (I’ll google the case in the 7th circuit. Curiosity.)
harrywr2 (Comment #92480)
“Almost by definition Libertarians don’t believe that they have a ‘natural duty’ to others. Hence they are ‘evil’.”
I disagree. I have always been a libertarian and it is my experience that most libertarians do believe they have a natural duty to help others. They object to government compelling them to help others.
Regards,
WJR
Re: lucia (Comment #92485)
The link given by BarryW (Comment #92477) to Steve McIntyre’s legal analysis of the wire fraud statute provides an analysis much more pertinent than the analysis you have cited. Money is not a necessary element of the crime.
Regards,
WJR
This is the reasoning in the 7th circuit ( Chicago!). I’ll bold some things that I think may be important given that people are citing McNally and Carpenter. The bold bits relate to which ruling came first, and what SCOTUS ruled did or did not apply:
There is an issue though: after both these cases, Congress tweaked the wording. So, it seems to me that based on SCOTUS interpretation of the pre-1988 wording, the 7th circuit ruling says
a) wirefraud is not limited to getting money
b) some intangible rights are covered
c) these include property rights but
d) the inttangible right to to good government is not covered.
I don’t have any specific knowledge of how the wording changed. Wikipedia says the inteintion was to change the wording to extend protection to cover (d). Of course, that doesn’t mean it might not have simultaneously shrunken protection to no longer cover (b)&(c). I wouldn’t imagine Congress would intentionally yank the long-included notion that mail and wire fraud included any property (chairs, tables, Picasso paintings etc.), but that doesn’t mean they didn’t accidentally do so. Odder things have happened.
Re: Anteros (Comment #92415)
So that’s what that thing is, in the middle of Piccadilly Circus! And everybody refers to it as Eros, when it’s really Anteros! (Notice the butterfly wings!) And I didn’t even know there was such a thing as Anteros until yesterday!
I like this blog. I’m always learning stuff here.
On to the 1988 tweek to the law. The ultimate arbitator of all blog spats says
This would seem to merely extend the reach to include “d) the intangible right to to good government is not covered. ” I don’t see how “include” would be read to exclude items the term “defraud” previously included. So, for example: it previously included money and certain types of intangible property. There’s no reason to think extending to include another thing somehow implies continuuing to include money but no longer including “financial information” the specific intangible the court agreed was included in Carpenter (which it ruled on after McNally).
Until such time as we have real lawyers here who can tell us what we should really think, it seems that McIntyre’s analysis matches what I have found on the web better than Hank Robert’s claim that defrauding needs to involve money. (That said– it’s not as if Robert’s claim looks utterly groundless. There must be some reason the 8th circuit mentions money in the requirements, and that’s a 1995 ruling.)
To make ice bets one needs …
1) … an institute that can be trusted …
2) … and that publishes daily values (numbers, not just graphs) …
3) … from a satellite that will function for some time.
So I suggest to wait until the successor for AMSR-E is up and working.
And, for heavens sake, let’s use JAXA itself and not the University of Bremen.
The Columbia article was written by somebody with an activist mindset. Nick Stokes charitably described it as “dispassionate”. I would call it weak and slanted.
First, Gleick is not a journalist nor was he acting as a journalist when he executed this caper. He was at all times a political activist with an express ideological and personal agenda. The fact that he is also invited to opine on Forbes in an op-ed capacity does not make him an investigative journalist.
Second, the moral equivalence analysis was surprisingly wrong. No major media organization would permit a reporter to to do what he did. The Washington Post, for example, does not permit its reporters to fail to identify their affiliation before talking to any source. Even hidden camera/sting investigations have to have a clear indication of unlawful (as opposed to politically incorrect) activity to establish a defense (analogous to whistleblowing) against charges of trespass etc.
You can’t lie, falsely impersonate and or commit wire fraud to get confidential internal governance documents just because you don’t like the people whose privacy you are violating. And no, it is not a presumptive crime to accept funds from people and corporations that disagree with CAGW dogma and advocate such positions publicly. Therefore, a whistleblower defense in this instance would not fly.
How hard is it just admit that a hard-line CAGW guy was dead wrong and move on? Maybe, (to answer Mosher’s question about why not toss Gleick under the bus) it is to fight against the notion that there are objective legally enforceable standards of behavior that trump political correctness and ideological allegiances, the notion that there may be something higher than Climate Change.
Here I am reminded of James Hansen’s idiot mission (mentioned in the CJR article) to testify to free vandals who attacked an English coal mine in the name of saving the planet. It is a political and moral vision that is indistinguishable from Mussolini’s–contradict my side’s political orthodoxy and you forfeit all property and personal rights no matter what the law on the books may say.
Meanwhile, I would bet that NORSEX Extent (at a maximum for this date) will not reach a record maximum (since 2007).
The inclusion reads as though it would make what P Gleick did more criminal rather than less. IIRC, “”to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services”” can apply such that THI had an obligation to keep person(s) names confidential in order to render “honest services” to the person(s) that they had committed a duty to service or that keeping name(s) confidential in order to provide honest services. I can’t remember where, but there is something about that phrase that was used to cover a broad area in something seemingly as unlikely as environmental law.
NORSEX Extent link to data? We can run bets if they post data relatively promptly. Heck, we can do bets on instruments that exhibit some glitches– provided they report a numerical value. Whether or not the instrument gives reasonably correct values just part of the bet.
What we can’t do bets is on data that is not reported in numerical form. I’m willing to average over 7 days but I’m not going to do anything based on me processing pixels from an image or wait a year before the data is processed.
Re: Alexej Buergin (Mar 2 10:39),
Other than the fact that JAXA posted daily, I see no logic in your rejection of Uni-Bremen. The people at Uni-Bremen (and Uni-Hamburg) used a different algorithm (ASI) to calculate ice concentration from the satellite raw data by including the 89GHz emission channel data. They think their algorithm was more accurate than that used by JAXA. They also posted area data as well as extent for both northern and southern hemisphere sea ice. Do you have any evidence that the JAXA algorithm is better than the ASI algorithm?
John F. Pittman–
I think the honest services clause seems to extend the act to include someone inducing a public official to not perform his office fairly. If so, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the Gleick/Heartland which ( as far as we know ) does not involve any public officials. I think the honest services clause is a red herring.
Copner.
yes, the article didnt add much to the conversation. Impersonating a real person is something that journalists don’t do for good reason.
On the fraud question they didnt even go into the law, and merely said that it was small potatoes. It is small potatoes, BUT it’s potatoes and not apples.
Alexej Buergin (Comment #92496)
Does JAXA still work? Didn’t they also use AMSR-E data?
lucia,
Daily NH sea ice extent data can be found at the MAISIE ftp site. They only post the last 30 days of data. By comparing NOAA monthly data to JAXA and now to MAISIE, I calculated a linear transformation that makes the MAISIE data agree fairly well with JAXA during the unfortunately short period of overlap.
Re: George Tobin (Mar 2 11:24),
No and yes. But a new satellite is supposed to be launched Real Soon Now.
Re: DeWitt Payne (Mar 2 11:28),
Specifically, the GCOM-W1 satellite with the AMSR2 detector.
http://www.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/gcom_w/index_e.html
“DeWitt Payne (Comment #92503)
March 2nd, 2012 at 11:20 am
Do you have any evidence that the JAXA algorithm is better than the ASI algorithm?”
Everybody I know has the arctic ice minimum in 2007. Only Bremen says it was in 2011. But then of course the Germans are so smart they can teach the Japanese (JAXA) how to use japanese equipment (AMSR-E) …
“lucia (Comment #92502)
March 2nd, 2012 at 11:09 am
NORSEX Extent link to data?”
Just pulling your leg. But have you noticed that the extent is quite high at the moment, nobody is talking about that, and nobody is interested in betting on the maximum instead of the minimum?
But then according to the Germans, the “warm January has devoured great holes in the arctic ice”.
http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/umwelt/article13879113/Warmer-Januar-frisst-grosse-Loecher-ins-Arktis-Eis.html
We can bet the maximum if it hasn’t happened yet. There just needs to be enough time to give bettors a chance to think about and and get to the form.
I’ve tried to look at this issue from the perspective of a true believer. It seems that all of their argue,ends boil down to a “lesser evil” defense. Essentially they are saying that Gleick’s actions are defensible because they were not as bad as allowing HI to continue to thwart action on climate change.
But this argue,Ent doesn’t hold water in my view. First, US courts have generally not accepted this defense. Even if they did, it requires believing that 1) HI is thwarting action, and 2) the lack of action is a real and present danger.
Their problem is that the HI documents, the authentic ones, show that HI is not funded by Big Oil and that HI spends less than $1 mill on climate change. It’s hard to believe that HI is single handedly thwarting climate action, or even that they are a significant hindrance.
The other problem is that it is hard to make a case for real and present danger when there has been no action for the last ten years, but the expected warming has failed to materialize.
I just don’t see this line of reasoning holding up with anyone but a true believer. It is essentially the same argument that right to lifers use for committing crimes against abortion clinics and that hasn’t worked for them.
Will J. Richardson (Comment #92486)
March 2nd, 2012 at 9:30 am
I have always been a libertarian and it is my experience that most libertarians do believe they have a natural duty to help others. They object to government compelling them to help others.
In the world of law ‘duty’ = ‘legal obligation’.
Most libertarians may in fact be generous and charitable. As you say, they object to being ‘compelled’ by anything other then their own personal values to be generous and charitable.
In my daughters law class the students whose view was that a ‘natural duty to assist’ exists felt that anyone who sat at the hotel pool and watched someone drown was a criminal and should be imprisoned.
Those with the more ‘libertarian’ view that a ‘natural duty’ doesn’t exist thought a person that sat at a pool and watched someone drown was a person devoid of any human compassion and certainly deserving of being pilloried by the community but not a ‘criminal’.
Just wanted to comment that I think James Annan, Gavin, and others who came out immediately against Peter Gleick’s confessed actions deserve kudos for that. Annan also comes to the simplest conclusion regarding the origin of the forged memo thus raising the dander of many of his usual supporters.
“Two big things have happened recently on the climate change front. The first, of course, is Peter Gleick’s great personal sacrifice–his desperate gamble taken to expose the Heartland Institute’s planned assault on climate science in our schools, funded by the Kochs and other fossil fuel interests.”
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Reframing-Climate-Change-N-by-Susan-Strong-120302-317.html?show=votes
You would think that a former professor of communication on contemporary issues would have a little better grasp of the issues (both ethical and factual).
Okay so why is Ross Rice unsure if there’s a crime when FBI policy seems clearer:
http://www.cio.com/article/696793/FBI_Warns_Hacktivists_You_re_Breaking_the_Law_
[FBI Assistant Executive Director Shawn] Henry maintains that the FBI isn’t motivated by hacktivist groups’ ideological agendas. What matters most to the FBI, he says, is that these groups are breaking the law.
“When anybody breaches a network and steals data and then publicizes it—whether they’re from a foreign country and they’re using the data to help their country’s industry, they sell it as an organized crime group, or they just display it because they think the company they stole it from is acting inappropriately—the fact that the data is stolen is a violation of federal law,” he says, his voice rising with conviction. “Hacktivism is no different from organized crime groups or foreign governments. It’s the exact same activity, perhaps done for a different reason or purpose, and it’s all still illegal.”
I see that Arthur Smith is now weighing in against Annan. The poor guy does not know what he has done by taking an ethical stance on this issue.
However, it is quite clear that Arthur “smarter than anyone in the world” Smith, Hank Roberts and co wouldn’t know an ethical standpoint if it shat in their beds. I feel sorry for Annan, but that is why the rapid response team exists…all power to Superman Mandia.
diogenes (Comment #92549)
What I think they really miss is, what message are they communicating to real scientists like Annan by their ratings. Deniers and skeptics have never been the threat to the cause. The real threat, the one they should be worried about, is that real scientists will see the cause for what it really is. If they lose the support of mainstream ethical scientist then they have lost.
This Gleick thing is inflicting multiple waves of damage on the alarmists. The first wave of damage was Gleick’s fault. The second wave of damage was the alarmist activist sites and journos fault for running so hard, fast and recklessly with the story and now the third wave is the alarmists who are trying to contort some white wash rationalization around Gleick’s actions so that it does not appear as reprehensible, immoral and illegal as it obviously is.
Mosh is right. If the future of mankind was really at stake then the right thing to do would be to sacrifice Gleick instead of embracing him. In fact, if Gleick was really the heroic figure they seem to think he is, even he would want them to righteously denounce his actions and distance themselves so as not to further damage the movement.
As it stands, the alarmists clearly believe that Gleick’s actions were positive for the cause, even at the cost of Gleick’s career and credibility. From their view it would be like Gleick has jumped on the grenade, sacrificing himself to spare his friends. Yet by trying to justify Gleick’s actions instead of running away from the grenade the alarmists are clustering ever closer to Gleick thus taking full damage themselves and preventing Gleick’s “sacrifice” from actually meaning anything.
From the skeptics side this looks like a gift that’s going to keep on giving:
– By continuing to pound on the obviously fake document (when so many on their own side admit it’s fake), the alarmists demonstrate they’ll use any nebulous evidence to promote their cause. They also keep Heartland on the warpath to prove in court the document is fake. The alarmists continue to escalate their bet on a piece of evidence that’s going to blow up on them.
– Justifying Gleick’s actions continues to highlight that their team accepts lying for the cause, calling into question everything they’ve ever said or published while reinforcing the skeptic’s key talking point on the Climategate emails.
– Harping on the other Heartland docs keeps reintroducing clear evidence that Heartland is not a “well-funded, organized conspiracy” and that the funding disparity is ridiculously in the alarmists favor.
Every aspect of this whole affair is now poison for them. The smart thing would be to bury it as fast as they can by pulling down all the Heartland docs, all their articles on this and stop talking about it. Instead they continue to pour their energy into keeping it alive. I think they are blind to this for the same reason they’ve always had such trouble. They measure their success largely from the feedback of their own fan boys and acolytes instead of from the only audience that really matters, the undecided swing ‘voters’ in the middle.
One man acting irresponsibly is not anything to do with the case for AGW. It still stands, it has not been touched.
It’s not Gleick that did any lasting harm, it’s the reaction of the activist community that is responsible for that. As much as one tries to reason with them, they aren’t really any more rational or in touch with reality than the most extreme of the denier community.
bugs –
Whether we like it or not, the reality is that the ‘case’ for AGW is tied up with the reputation of those who are pushing it. If there is a widespread understanding that its advocates believe it is ethical to lie for the cause, the case for AGW is necessarily damaged.
In an ideal world it shouldn’t be. But in a way the case for AGW only exists (as something with energy and will) in humans who entertain it. If people doubt it (because they see its proponents as willing to lie for it) then for them it may as well not exist.
“But in a way the case for AGW only exists (as something with energy and will) in humans who entertain it. “
No, the case for AGW exists in the real physical world. It’s what is going to happen. We can find out (whatever it is) sooner if we want to, and study carefully. But we’ll find out, regardless. The answer is in the physical world, not what advocates do, or are thought to do.
“the case for AGW exists in the real physical world” or not, as the case may be.
The case still stands. AGW is real, it has been measured, it has been observed. The only question is climate sensitivity.
Nick Stokes –
We’re very close to semantics here. but I think there’s still a point in distinguishing the case for something and its existence. The case needs a perspective, a viewer, a belief system and ‘facts’ that come into being as a result of how they are viewed.
The ‘reality’ of AGW is something else. I don’t think it is the same thing as the ‘case’ for it.
I agree that the physical world has its own reality. For more than 4 billion years the earth was ~spherical. The ‘case’ for it required more change in the perceiving apparatus than we can begin to imagine.
Perhaps also, the ‘general public’ is a world away from someone with a relatively fierce rationality such as yourself. AGW may loom larger and larger over 20, 30, 40 years and maybe the vast proportion of the populace won’t get round to believing it. Intriguingly, for almost the entire history of humanity, the reverse has been true – almost everybody believed human beings affected the climate (and burnt each other at the stake for it, or cut out their hearts to prevent it..)
I think the perceived honesty of those ‘making the case’ is significant in the weight of the case itself.
P.S.
I should have added, are there any sane, informed people who disbelieve that human activities have an effect on the climate?
Climate sensitivity may be the big issue and the big uncertainty for those involved but surely the issue for everybody else is whether or not the phenomenon is something to worry about?
“The only question is climate sensitivity”. And the small question of the sign of feedbacks, yet to be demonstrated.
“Perhaps also, the ‘general public’ is a world away from someone with a relatively fierce rationality such as yourself. AGW may loom larger and larger over 20, 30, 40 years and maybe the vast proportion of the populace won’t get round to believing it. Intriguingly, for almost the entire history of humanity, the reverse has been true – almost everybody believed human beings affected the climate (and burnt each other at the stake for it, or cut out their hearts to prevent it..)”
Sure, so lets agree that out of the many thousands of scientists working directly on or in areas the relate to climate research, one has committed this fraud.
Mark /#comment-92565
This article by a senior Heartland staffer in Forbes allows him to illustrate all of your points and more:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/03/01/fakegate-the-obnoxious-fabrication-of-global-warming/
1. The authentic documents rebut the claim that Heartland is lavishly funded by the energy sector and other corporate interests.
2: Heartland does important work such as producing a voluminous response to the IPCC and hosting important conferences. All this is done on a shoestring budget that illustrates how much an ounce of truth can accomplish.
3. Gleick’s actions, and the efforts to defend them, further illustrate the dark side of the climate alarmist that was first exposed in the climate gate emails.
As the rabbit said, “please don’t throw me in the briar patch.”
bugs –
I’m happy to agree that. I’m not sure either the hard-core partisans or the general public (if bothered) will be so easy to persuade.
Mark,
Your lengthy Comment #92565 has been the spark that set off an outburst of insightful and rational discussion by bugs, Carrick, Anteros, Nick Stokes, and Simon. I think that most of Lucia’s readers would agree with most of the points that you and they have raised.
With, possibly, occasional differences in emphasis. 🙂
Amusingly, the thread at James’ Empty Blog used to end with a trackback to this Lucia post. It doesn’t, any more.
Bugs, Anteros,
Whether or not someone believes the case for AGW (and especially CAGW) almost certainly does depend on their existing beliefs; as Jayne pointed out, evidence is always weighted according to Baysian logic, where past experience serves as the ‘prior’ in the analysis. Gleick’s actions (unfortunately) seem to confirm what many people concluded from the content of the UEA email messages: that some relatively well known climate scientists were willing to sacrifice principled behavior to advance ‘the cause’. I agree that most climate scientists would never behave as Gleick did. But that does not undo the damage he has done to climate science. The creation of seemingly endless excuses for Gleick’s actions among those worried about CAGW only magnifies the damage by reinforcing the Baysian prior.
Bugs
“AGW may loom larger and larger over the next 20, 30 or 40 years…”
Quite aside from what Gleick did, that sentence nicely captures the tenor of the alarmist message of the past 25 years.
However, the climatic reality is that [without exeption] none of the catastrophic predictions have come to pass, and as a consequence the socio-political reality now is that AGW/ACC is receding fast from the public’s proccupations and consequently from agendas of key legislators and other decision makers.
That in turn is already becoming evident in ongoing changes in energy and other economic policies and legislation, and will in due course also manifest itself as a shift in academic funding priorities.
“The only question is climate sensitivity.”
Bugs, in the words of Jerry Seinfeld:
“…that’s a pretty big matzo ball hanging out there…”
Re: Anteros (Comment #92568)
This observation of yours
should be e-mailed to every climate scientist and blogger, perhaps twice a day, until they actually get it.
Characteristically, Nick Stokes did not even appear to read it. He just changed the subject, again.
Tetris,
“the climatic reality is that [without exeption] none of the catastrophic predictions have come to pass,”
In fairness, most of the catastrophic predictions have always been pretty far into the future (late 21st century and beyond), like 1-2 meter sea level increases by 2100, etc. The divergence of climate models from observations, and an obvious lack to date of the predicted acceleration in the rate of sea level rise do suggest that the rate and extent of warming is likely overstated…. which logically makes future catastrophes less likely.
.
The receding priority given to CAGW by decision makes is, I think, as much due to the political reality that few voters are willing to impoverish themselves today for benefits which (or may not!) arrive until 80 years from now as a lack of desire by many of those decision makers to force drastic changes in energy use. What is missing is a convincing case for current costs justifying future benefits. I don’t think that excludes the possibility that a convincing case could be made at some date in the future. My personal guess is that rising petroleum cost will significantly change people’s energy use in developed countries for transportation, but that overall fossil fuel use will continue to rise for at least a couple of decades before declining.
When I read the impassioned posts of those who believe in high climate sensitivity, it’s useful to evaluate the fervency of their advocacy for nuclear power. This is even more true in the wake of Fukushima. If the climate outlook is that certain and that bad, surely the risk/reward calculations around nuclear tilt in favor of rapid development.
Of course, with a few exceptions (Barry Woods), this is far from the standard stance. Instead, we can read uplifting faith-based stories about The Color Green, testimonials on the redemptive power of purchasing Carbon
IndulgencesOffsets, and so forth.bugs is right, none of this changes the physical reality of earth’s climate system. Yet I agree with SteveF: the difficulty that most advocates and scientist/advocates have in understanding the implications of their own beliefs influences my perception of the ‘Bayesian prior.’
[ Edit: In this regard, scientist/preacher Michael Tobis stands out from most other anti-nuke climate greens. His vision of a warm, grim, Malthusian future is consistent with the alarmist beliefs he expresses. ]
That is funny.
julio (Comment #92586),
Were I terribly concerned about the consequences of GHG driven warming (and you know I am not), I would be screaming for Gleick and his minions to be thrown under the bus ASAP. There is no place for them in a reasoned public debate if you truly care about instituting (forced) reductions in fossil fuel use.
AMac,
“Bayesian” vs “Baysian”…. I was too lazy to check the correct spelling, but as bugs might say, that doesn’t change the reality of the analysis; climate scientists behaving badly reduces trust in ALL of climate science.
AMac,
“His vision of a warm, grim, Malthusian future is consistent with the alarmist beliefs he expresses.”
Yes, Micheal is at least consistent.. even when his beliefs conflict with overwhelming evidence. I particularly like his views on the need for drastic reductions in human population… he envisions a world with pre-1800 levels of population, drastically reduced per capita industrial production and much of the land surface returned to its (proper) natural state. It is IMO a mainly religious argument.
bugs, Nick:
It was never about the science. It was always and at all times about the politics, the potential for increased money and influence that comes from being at the center of an elevated policy issue. It about the potential for a single issue to undo the economic and political order.
When people tell me in pious tones it is only about empirical reality, I know that I am about to get one part radiative physics and nine parts heavily massaged, ideologically induced speculation.
If it were about the science, there would be no need to scramble to prevent scientists (like Roger Pielke Sr) from publishing or being cited in IPCC docs. If it were about the science, there would not be legions of true believers trashing anyone deemed unorthodox.
If it were about the science, people who discuss whether mitigation or adaptation is better would not be savaged and have their professional careers jeopardized (Bjorn Lomborg). If it were about the science, people who believe that AGW is real but that the discussion cannot productively be based on scare stories or exaggerations (“climate porn”) would not be trashed as heretice or tools of Exxon.
The idea that Gleick just stepped out from an otherwise unpoliticized Eden of scientific activity is a denial of reality. A reality-based community does not have a majority who thinks Gleick is a hero. If it were about the science, there would be a richer and more diverse climate narrative without an obsession with a single policy-relevant atmospheric gas.
Don’t tell me Gleick is irrelevant. He represents exactly what AGW has come to mean and for the faithful the “science” is reduced to only that which can be used to serve the narrative.
Michael Tobis disturbs me because despite his allegedly scientific mindset, he sees things. He sees that the climate system is disrupted, he sees that a mass extinction is underway, and he sees that biomes are struggling everywhere.
It’s not up for debate or discussion, in fact he has told me repeatedly that he is only interested in discussing with people “how bad it’s going to be”.
It’s the fundamentalist certainty that bugs me [as well as the ‘seeing’ 🙂 ] it’s a sort of blinkeredness that I find baffling. Where is that little bit of doubt that we’re all supposed to have to stop us going mad? (or behaving like-a-Gleick)
Mark
Very very nice.
Now I have to think up a catchy way to turn that entire argument
into one sentence or one image. Maybe a cross should be involved
Mosher,
How about: Think it possible you may be mistaken, then act accordingly.
ouch. that makes my head hurt and is realy smart.
im thinkin silly
Gleick: the other lunchmeat
This issue has for some time really been about policy. Lets ignore the extremes at both ends on the science question: those who claim humans have no effect on climate, and 2) those who claim that settled science predicts a catastrophic effect.
What is left is the sensible position: humans effect climate but the extent of their impact is subject to substantial uncertainty and could range from benign impacts to dangerous impacts.
Now we can frame the policy issue: what do we do in the face of this uncertainty. The two main positions are these.
Camp 1: Fixing the problem is relatively inexpensive and will lead us to do things that are good ideas anyway. We should act promptly despite the uncertainty.
Camp 2: The problem may not be solveable with existing technologies because its solution will be very expensive. Reaching an international agreement necessary to solve the problem may be impossible due to the freeloader problem. We should not act until the uncertainty has been substantially reduced.
When these political camps pretend to debate the science, I think they are really debating the uncertainty issue through the filter of their policy position.
Nick Stokes: “No, the case for AGW exists in the real physical world. It’s what is going to happen”
Agreed.
However (I) The problem is that the case for catastrophic consequences is weak. (II) The case that the types of government intervention that have been proposed for mitigation is even weaker, and (III) the case that the money should be spent in this area rather than another the weakest.
Just because I accept the science that CO2 is a GHG (there are some wonderful examples of what a universe looks like where CO2 and H2O aren’t radiatively active) and I accept that water vapor feedback cycle tends to yield a net amplification (I quote 2.5°C/doubling as my best SOTP guess), that doesn’t mean I am then required to accept without careful deliberation points (I), (II) and (III) above.
At James’ Empty Blog, grypo challenges Mosher’s version of how he came to focus on Dr Gleick.
> So what is simpler, Mosher guessed [Gleick’s involvement] right through style and the mention of Gleick in the memo, or Mosher obtained the information he was looking for and doesn’t want to tell anyone for whatever multitude of reasons.
Steven Mosher, if you’re reading, could you address this notion over there?
The difficulty with saying Gleick must not have written the memo because he’s not a complete moron is that Gleick also must be a complete moron to have acted as he describes in his current version of the story. Or at least– he’s a complete moron in the same sense of the term “complete moron” which really means “he has a really, really big blind spot” about something.
Any non-moron who got that letter and wanted to do something about it would have contacted someone they knew– likely a reporter– scanned it, sent them the copy by email and asked them what to do with it.
I’ve wracked my brain to imagine a story where that permits me to think Gliecks behavior does not exhibit some level of complete moron, and as imaginative as I am, I can only think of one. Someone he loves very much did it. I doubt that’s the explanation, but I can’t think of any that don’t involve him doing something moronic.
SteveF [92587]
The point is that the meme has always been about man-made catastrophy in the future. Reality is that Mother Nature is not following the script as told since the mid-1980s, when everthing that was going to befall us was also going to happen 20 or 30 years out. Ordinary folks, who are way less dense than many high brows give them credit for, have caught on and that in turn is percolating up through the body politic.
Meanwhile oil and gasoline consumption in the US, the UK and elsewhere in the OECD is below mid-1990 levels, and that trend can be expected to continue. BMW is putting the finishing touches to a 3l/100km [80 miles/gallon] series 1 powered by a small turbo diesel and other European car manufacturers are following suite, and Ford is working on several families of downsized direct injected gasoline engines in North America. Any future price pressure on hydrocarbon fuels for transportation will be solely due to rapidly rising demand in the BRICs and followers.
The crux lies there: a] these countries are not going to stop their economic development. b] their governments too, have noticed the purported causal link between CO2 emissions [rising rapidly] and temperature [flatlining] is not what had been advertised, and c] have publicly disavowed the IPCC and in Durban last December in so many words told the UN climate program “don’t call us, we’ll call you”, d] the shale gas and tight oil revolution that’s going on globally equates to “peak nuclear” and “peak renewables”.
So ongoing shifts in the use of hydrocarbon and other energy sources will therefore ultimately be driven by [sometimes state-owned] market players and no longer by direct government fiat. Those who doubt this should take a look at what is befalling the “alternative” energy sectors in the EU and North America now that the subsidies are being pulled back.
The “in 20, 30 or 40 years” meme no longer jinxes like it used to and Gleick & Co simply could not/did not want to understand that.
tetris (Comment #92602)
To continue with your arguement, it seems to go unsaid, but the US decarbonized at almost the same rate as Europe without any of the draconian government policies. A very compelling arguement can be made that nothing the Greens did in Europe actually had any meaningful effect. They simply wasted billions of dollars.
I’ve said for quite some time, I will believe that the effects will be catastrophic when the greens decide that AGW is a bigger threat than nuclear power. I don’t think nuclear is that big of a threat and they don’t think AGW is as big a threat as nuclear.
Le affair Gleick should, at the very least, lead us all to recognize that the “appeal to authority” argument is a fallacy for a reason.
“It’s not Gleick that did any lasting harm, it’s the reaction of the activist community that is responsible for that. As much as one tries to reason with them, they aren’t really any more rational or in touch with reality than the most extreme of the denier community.”
Carrick, I agree whole heartedly with your observation here and have been contemplating of late why, in my view of things anyway, that criticism of what appears to be rather unreasonable responses to issues such as Gleick are less than had the same irrational responses, and there are many of them, originated from their opposite extremes. I have conjectured that what happens is that a side of issue that is more in line with the current intelligentsia is less likely to be critiqued by those in that intelligentsia than someone with views not in line with them. I think the NYT and WaPost are rather good examples of this. They will do their journalistic best, and rightfully so, to show the fallacies of those less rational representatives of POVs different than theirs. Those same less rational representatives of their side of the issue are either ignored or even indirectly lauded for practicing “good politics” – unless those people are so irrational and so few that they can be separated from the rational as a matter of damage control.
Gleick could have thought going into his treachery that he would be given a pass for surreptitiously obtaining the valid HI documents. I think he might have had that pass had he stopped there – as evidence by those who have not included the forged document in his culpability but defended his actions or at least minimized the incorrectness of them for obtaining the legitimate HI documents. He may well have not been pleased with what little was revealed about HI from the legitimate documents that would support his own views of them as being evil and misrepresenting the facts on AGW. A person who was so sure of his rightness and even righteousness and the evil of his opposition and further thought his efforts would be viewed favorably by the current intelligentsia could have thought he could take the deception a step further.
The forged document is the key to this whole affair and what we learn from it is not so much what happens to Gleick or even HI but how the intelligentsia reacts if it is shown that Gleick forged it. Obviously in the bigger picture this is just one climate scientist and his actions will not and cannot change the science of climate. Rather it could, as the climategate emails showed, the heavy mix and influence of advocacy on climate science and after all it is the advocacy part of the equation that makes the headlines and not so much the science.
Carrick and Kenneth F
I agree with Carricks observation as well. The absolutely key difference though is that the extreme denier fringe is not demonstrably influencing policy decisions with far reaching socio-economic consequences the way the extreme environmentalist/AGW community is.
Evidence? Take a hard look at what has in actual fact happened in Germany, where following Fukushima the Merkel government last year caved in to persistent and longstanding pressure from the very influential “water mellons”, i.e. the extreme socialist/communists wrapped in green cloth, and decided to shut down mothball Germany’ nuclear power sources. This means shutting down a source which represents 35% of Germany’s energy and it is now -one year later- clear that no one but no one has any realistic idea of what to replace it with. Wind and solar remain pipedreams and the only other solutions would be to use more coal or make Germany even more reliant on Russian gas. As a consequence a recent poll showed that 25-30% of German industry is looking at delocalizing out of Germany to places where energy availability is assured.
What happened in Germany is a textbook case of what happens when an extreme community gets hold of the levers of power. Compared to power of the highly organized “water mellons”, the “denier” fringe are mere choir boys.
Mosher, AMac and PaulD,
Thanks for the kind words/comments. I debated posting some of that because I’m on the skeptic side (although I believe it is warming, that man’s activities contribute in a small way, etc, etc) and there’s this wonderful quote that goes something like “Don’t interrupt your opponent while he’s making a mistake” (but I can’t recall who to credit). However, I’d rather the realists/skeptics prevail on the merits of the science than the errors of their opponents.
Bugs,
I agree. CAGW is either happening right now (as predicted) in the real physical world or it isn’t. Gleick’s actions don’t change that physical reality and Gleick’s illegal and unethical acts don’t prove his fellow alarmist’s belief in CAGW right or wrong. Only measuring the real physical world can do that.
Here’s the thing though, Gleick’s confessed actions were aimed at “exposing” a well-funded, massive and pervasive conspiracy that turned out not to exist anywhere except in Gleick’s fevered imagination. Even if such a conspiracy did exist and Gleick “exposed” it, what would THAT have to do with what’s happening in the real physical world? Your observation that my opining on L’affaire Gleick is a distraction from the real issue is correct. Hence, your observation applies doubly to Gleick’s attempt to attack the Heartland organization and people instead of their ideas, science or data. It goes triply for all the alarmist blogs/journos that raced to pile on Gleick’s failed ad hominem attack. What Heartland thinks or does or who funds them is unrelated to whether CAGW is happening right now in the real physical world.
Is it possible there is a well-funded secret conspiracy run by a right-wing cabal from their mountain lair? Sure, I suppose it’s possible. Is it possible that such a conspiracy to undermine CAGW alarmism exists AND anthropogenic CO2 also has net negligible negative effects on global climate? If the answer is yes, then Gleick’s entire attempt to prove the first was a meaningless distraction (or misdirection) from the second, and only, real issue. In fact, all the ad hominem assertions that Gleick and alarmist blogs spend so much time spewing are unrelated to the actual truth or falsehood of the CAGW hypothesis. Looking at the public opinion polling, all the effort sunk into establishing the “Big Oil/Big Coal secret conspiracy meme” has been wasted. It seems to work great with the choir already in the alarmist church. Out in real world with real undecided people? Not so much.
A journalist once tried to provoke Einstein in the early days of special relativity by saying “over a thousand scientists say your theory is wrong”. Einstein had the perfect response. “If my theory was actually wrong it would only take one”.
NOTE TO LUCIA: The IP address I usually post from was blocked when I tried tonight. Never happened before. Fortunately, I can VPN from another IP. I’ll send you a message.
Re: Alexej Buergin (Mar 2 11:46),
Umm. The sea ice extent minimum was in 2007 according to JAXA and Uni-Hamburg. The sea ice area minimum was in 2011 according to Cryosphere Today and Uni-Hamburg. JAXA only reported daily extent data.
Uni-Hamburg minimum
year area extent (Mm²)
2007 3.503 3.973
2011 3.429 3.999
Cryosphere Today minimum area (Mm²)
2007 2.919
2011 2.905
JAXA minimum extent (Mm²)
2007 4.254
2011 4.527
The accuracy of determination of ice concentration by satellite is at it worst near the minimum. “Everybody knows” is not evidence.